Dried sage.

The pull in my energy from certain people in recent months is monotonous and the stories this person tells are bland, unseasoned, dry.
No wonder it leaves others starving and looking for nourishment elsewhere.
While looking back at things that have happened this year, all I can do is take a deep breath.
Manipulative people often are not fully aware that they are doing so, maybe in retrospect they can see in past relations where they fall into patterns and if they recognized them they would stop using people like pawns in some disillusioned game they've become masters at.
Yet, when you encounter someone with past debris, the heaviness they are doused in, permeated in, each word they speak feels like you are taking a shot of liquor. It's burning, you feel it hurting your thought process, but they are good at what they do and convince you to play along.
You literally watch yourself from an outer parallel view, becoming manipulated.
You push your intuition aside, some of your friends are not aware, or perhaps those are the ones (often) that you should have been protecting.
Now its 4am and they are face down in the grass and you are dragging them home, while spinning at warp speed.
Internally crying. Now you've lost three months that you were mourning something else, you've lost other things on your way here.
Is it worth searching for what was lost, do we repair from here, or do you just begin again?
Keep the pieces that meant the most and move forward with them... guarded.
I am strong enough to remain upright while also continuing to offer solace to those that actively hurt me.
I practice forgiveness, always.
Because I have often requested the same from others.

I have a social image to portray. This sometimes makes me seem like a fake version of myself.
I know this, I'm well aware. I'm not offended when being called out on this.
I'm braver outwardly than I am inside. I can harden my shell, or soften it.
I choose to use myself for good though.
However, this opens windows for people to crawl inside and ransack my mind.
Sometimes I get to a point where enough is enough.
It takes a lot, a whole lot. Even when I "cut people off" I have never cut anyone off.
I do not block people, I have not built walls tall enough in years.
It's not worth that type of retaliation, and honestly, even when I'm hurt, when I'm sucking poison from my wounds,
I still leave many trap doors unlocked.
I am protected at the same time. I have cushions to fall into, my social standings leave me endless nets to trust fall into, jump into if need be. There is loyalty I offer, and also receive.
I have friends that have pieces of my heart integrated into their own beings like microchips because they've protected me and as they offered me my pieces my back I held it into their palms and it melted like dry ice into their souls.
This is not just the 30 years I have been here.

I have shifted my being in this life countless times. If I stayed the same person that entire time I'd not be myself.
I grow.
I water myself, I water others, I close my eyes and reach into the rain as it falls in me, those grey clouds bring about vivid beauty and I am not afraid of recognizing it;
Recognizing myself.
We all have the ability to do this. To reach to the sun each day and wash that weight and heaviness from our souls.
We have equal light in the dark, and I find that people are more afraid of their light than their dark.
I challenge myself often to drop the charade, keep breathing, and keep my palms open facing upward.
I acknowledge everything this life is providing me, and I bring it into Light.

I feel myself resurfacing in fragments.

and her friend Revenge.

Look at you, licking your lips.
Vampiric, feeding off psyche.
A gleam in your eye because you got away with thievery.
Prowling through the night,
laughing with your over exaggerated joker-esque grin.
Echo echo echo.

You have no grounding baby, you have no earth to stabilize you.
Twisting in storms, little doll.
Whispered all my secrets to wrap you up in twine.
Beside you, coven dance, in time.
All the witches hair twirling in the sky, our hands lifted high.
A howling scene, in the late summer comes.
Spreading traps from moons to the sun.
Run through the woods, my breath is the wind.
Run run run.

Your legs will give.
I'll lift your head in gentle hands.
I'll reach into your chest and crush you the way you have crushed me.
I will run my fingers through your soul,
clenching every bit of life force, until you are dripping blue.
My little devil, in through your chest and out through your mouth.
A burst of golden flames.
Damage done, is damage earned.
I have no need for an eye, a tooth, or a nail.
Dragged behind on Karma's griffin tail.
Brush burn on those knees,
Isn't that how you like it dear?
A mess, a mess.

Don't you dare, speak my name.
Or I'll break you just the same.
I warned, take heed.
Oh you'll hear me, indeed.




SM

Carry yourself.
Overthrown.
I have nothing left to prove.
To recover these last moments.
in my hands like broken colored glass,
washed ashore.
Found.
Then let float back into the sea.

Asks me to sing him a song.
says it's been too long,
since my voice spoke the words my mind conjures up.
Knowing the things you said to her were taken from things I've written you.
I have no songs to sing,
Nothing new.

Hour glass

A world.
Is opening.
I'm not ready.
Don't think I am able.

What is this even worth?
If it was given up so easily.
Back to the woods.
Where I called your name through the tallest trees.

Losing myself in papers I placed in the creek.
Floating free.
Why'd you even come back to me?
Prove it's worth it.
Breathe in time.

S.M.